


Where There Are No Lies

by messageredacted



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Earth-3 (Crime Syndicate Universe), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:09:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You go back to doing what you do best: showing people who they really are on the inside, deep down where it’s real and there are no lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where There Are No Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on 24 April 2009.

It’s chance that leads you to him on that defining evening, chance that makes you burst through the window when he’s there, chance that gives you an audience the night you unfold the comedy club owner like deconstructing origami. It’s not the first time you’ve seen the skinny, gawky comedian with the big green eyes but this night holds something different, something transformative, even though you don’t know it yet.

You could have let the late payment slide but you didn’t, and when you leave the body there on the floor of the Last Laugh, you see the comedian in the corner, slumped against the wall, laughing as they do sometimes when they don’t know how else to react. It’s not common but it happens, some helpless shocked laughter that they always feel bad about afterwards, that they always try to pretend never happened, because normal people don’t laugh at death. Normal people don’t acknowledge how ridiculous it is, that foul smell, the things on the outside that should be on the inside, that release of bowels and that obscene thick white of exposed fat and that dark purple of exposed intestines. They don’t look at that and see how absurd it is. If they do, they keep it to themselves.

You don’t know enough to know that he’s not normal.

You leave him there because if there were no survivors to your crimes, no one would know enough to fear you. You leave him there and you go back to doing what you do best: showing people who they really are on the inside, deep down where it’s real and there are no lies.

The next time you hear his name, he’s making fun of yours. “What, was _‘Ratguy’_ already taken?” People look at him and they laugh, because jokes are something that normal people do laugh at, although no one admits that they’re really there to see him die. They will.

You wait in his hired car, breathing in the smell of the leather. There are camera flashes behind you, people clamoring for his attention, to get him to look their way. You see him coming with that perky little blond manager of his, the one who looks up at him so adoringly. It’s the expression on her face that makes you change your mind. You’re not going to murder him. You’re going to give the people what they want.

The blonde opens the door and smirks up at the comedian. “You _know_ what I mean,” she purrs. You grab the tassels on her stupid shirt and pull. She gets a second to stare into your face, shocked, horrified, and then you slit her from stem to stern.

The comedian screams the way you’ve always dreamed he would when he gets an armful of corpse. You slam him into the wall, into the car door, smashing his face into the glass, your fingers wrapped in his long hair. “Answer me something, you pathetic little weasel. You sad little jokester,” you say to him as he holds onto the door and spits blood. You grab his head again and pull him through the hole where the window was, and as he lifts his face to look at you, his eyes wide, his face unsmiling, you bring up your blade.

“Who’s laughing now?”

It takes a month before he gives you the answer to your question. _He is_. He’s taken the money you made him, the face you gave him, the name you christened him with, and he’s. Still. Laughing.

Your knives are dull from hard use and you spend some time sharpening them against ceramic. The ceramic doesn’t actually grind away the metal like people think—you see, all knives have serrated edges, so fine you can’t see them, thousands of tiny little teeth that, over time, splay and bend, making the knife dull. Sharpening realigns the teeth back to a sharp edge.

These teeth are called _feathers_.

You sharpen your knives and you think of his smile, think of the way he felt trembling against you when you cut his mouth. You think about holding his hair and watching him choke on his own blood, and you think of the way he looked up at you, his eyes fixed on your smile. He must have known you would come for him, after all of his taunting.

The next time you see him, you know it’s him before you even hear his voice. There he is, in the suit he wore that night, his face painted with clown makeup. He’s smiling at you. He’s trying to provoke you again. Maybe he’s just trying to save your victims but he only has eyes for you.

When you fight, he is stronger than you expected, and you end in a draw. You don’t know exactly how he turned from the soft, weak comedian into this wily, tricky thing but you like to think that it was you who honed him, sharpened him into this worthy opponent. You want to dig your knife into him, cut something else out of him, see what else you can turn him into, but he is too quick for you, and he always escapes.

Some nights when he’s not around, you stalk other victims, skinny boys with long hair and soft flesh. You watch them from the rooftops and then when they’re alone, you pounce. Owls hunt with stealth, cutting through the air in silence. Their flight feathers are serrated to reduce noise, and when you drop on them, they never hear you coming.

You disarticulate them with your knives, removing them in sections. This hand, curled and pale. This shin, the skin stretched shiny over the bone. You remove them in pieces and you think of him while you do it, and your back bows with the bee sting slap of your need. You practice on them, because when you catch him, you want it to be _perfect_.

One night, you’re on the rooftop, watching a long-limbed, long-haired man move down the street, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. Your mouth goes wet and when he moves out of the streetlight you step to the ledge and drop. Your wings spread and you circle down, preparing to hit him in midair, smash him to the ground, put your knife inside of him, and then the man turns and looks up at you and smiles and you realize it’s _him_.

It startles you enough that when you hit him, the two of you spin out of control, slamming and rolling onto the pavement. He latches onto you, laughing breathlessly, his fingernails clawing into your arms, and you desperately try to regain control of the situation. You want to be inside of him, where there are no lies—you want to show him who he really is.

You feel like you have been realigned into something sharp and raw, something obsessed. You want to bury your knife in him but you know that you only get to enjoy that once, and if you do it now, you’ll never have it to look forward to again.

You wrestle, and when you land on top you cut the buttons off his stupid trousers. His flesh is smooth and soft like you remember and when you bend him double and push inside of him he makes a sound like all the boys did when you put your knife in their guts. He fights you, and he bites your wrist, and you let him. He is hot around you and you can feel his pulse. When you lean down, chest to chest, you can feel his hardness trapped against your stomach. He can’t lie to you. You put your mouth close to his and breathe in his gasps.

You are almost there when you realize he has your knife, and he puts it in you, burying it deep in your stomach. That, more than anything, is what finishes you.

You leave him there, still hard, still gasping, still holding your knife. You put your hand against the weeping wound in your flesh, knowing you are going to need a doctor. Around the corner, you pause. You push your fingers into the wound, touching the pain, touching the heat. For the first time you can feel your own insides, and as your pulse beats against your fingers, you wonder what truths they tell.


End file.
